Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy that Caused the Collapse of the Soviet Union. - book reviews

National Review, August 29, 1994 by Peter W. Rodman

THE end of the Cold War, the great international event of our time, is fresh enough in the collective memory that inside accounts of how it happened still fascinate. When the end came, it came so suddenly that many developments still cry out for explanation. The political debate at home continues to rage, with liberals still insisting that Mikhail Gorbachev did it all by himself, parthenogenically, as it were. (An elegant recent book on the Cold War by Guardian correspondent Martin Walker takes a slightly different tack, giving Ronald Reagan a little of the credit--but for being a closet dove beneath what Mr. Walker dismisses as ineffectual anti-Communist blather.) It is fortunate, then, that the contemporary record continues to be expanded with fresh eyewitness information.

Peter Schweizer's Victory sheds new light on U.S. policy in the early Reagan years, based on the unprecedented access the author seems to have gained to key presidential strategy documents of that period and on the voluminous interviews he has conducted with key participants, principally American. He makes important additions to the evidentiary record, bolstering the case that the collapse of the Soviet empire didn't happen by itself or by accident; the Soviet regime was subjected to significant pressure by a deliberate and determined American policy.

Among the highlights of the book are Schweizer's authoritative accounts of a series of crucial National Security Decision Directives (NSDDs) signed by President Reagan. These are the documents by which the Reagan Administration marked out its path--its turn away from containment as traditionally practiced in U.S. foreign policy, and toward "roll-back," an offensive strategy to exploit Soviet vulnerabilities and weaken the Soviet grip not only abroad but also at home.

--NSDD-32 (early 1982) called for an expanded program of covert support for underground movements resisting Communist rule in Eastern Europe, including Solidarity in Poland.

--NSDD-56 (November 1982) laid out a strategy of increased economic pressures on a Soviet regime known to be in dire economic straits. This strategy included restricting Western credits, denying critical technologies, and exacerbating Soviet economic troubles in a variety of other ways.

--NSDD-75 (early 1983), a more fundamental statement of policy, declared that the objective of the United States was no longer to coexist with the Soviet system but to change that system radically. The brainchild of Harvard professor Richard Pipes, then serving as an NSC staffer, NSDD-75 was rooted in the belief that "we had it in our power to alter the Soviet system through the use of external pressure," as Professor Pipes later put it to Mr. Schweizer.

--NSDD-166 (March 1985), formulated at CIA Director William Casey's urging, sharply escalated the U.S. commitment to the Afghan resistance with the goal of inflicting a major strategic defeat on the Soviets (as opposed to President Carter's more modest goal of "harassing" the Soviet occupying forces in Afghanistan).

Mr. Schweizer tells the story of these policy decisions and their evolution vividly, with rich detail, anecdotes, and accounts of many things that have not been widely known. There was, for example, the collaboration with Pope John Paul II on covert programs to assist Solidarity in Poland; and there was the collusion with the Saudis to drive down oil prices, which had the effect, among others, of depriving the Soviet Union of foreign exchange on which it was counting for its economic recovery. Most importantly there was the stepped-up Afghan program, which included not only an escalation of arms aid to the mujahedin but also the formation of specially trained guerrilla units that regularly crossed the border from Afghan territory to launch raids inside the Soviet Union itself.

All this, and more, adds valuable source material to the public record.

The book has its limitations, however. It is written in a breathless style that at times detracts from the impression of seriousness ("January of 1981 was particularly cold in Washington, D.C.... Still, there was the eager anticipation in the nation's capital that accompanies any transition in power. ..."). As Mr. Schweizer is the first to admit, this is more a work of journalism than of history or political analysis.

For those of us who worked in the Reagan Administration, moreover, the book presents an oversimplified picture of how decisions were made, and how, once made, they were implemented as policy. The progression of events was never as coherent as Mr. Schweizer makes it seem. There was an extraordinary amount of confusion in the Administration over both strategy and tactics. The NSDDs, intellectually and historically important as they are, were often the objects of bitter bureaucratic struggle, and equally often ignored by agencies of the government that did not like the vigorous line emanating from the White House. The important decision to supply Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the Afghans, to take one example, was fought tooth and nail by Bill Casey's own CIA as well as by the U.S. military; it took over a year and a half after NSDD-166 before any Stingers made it to the field. Nor did State Department officials treat the NSDDs as marching orders; they were simply filed away if key mid-level officials disapproved of them (and they were not given wide distribution anyway, in view of their sensitivity as top-secret documents).